School assignment I took a little too seriously.


In Retrospect...

What moral do people learn as children that is no longer valuable as adults? Why is it no longer valuable?

As a child, I learned that fear is destructive. I was in fourth grade when New York suffered the collapse of the Twin Towers and the deaths of over two thousand people. I remember having arrived at school, and less than an hour later, being sent home in a hushed panic the adults did not think we would notice. I did not understand. My mother drove me directly from school to the tennis courts, where I usually trained after school. As I walked through the lobby with my racquet bag, which was larger than I was, I caught glimpses of the televisions bolted on the walls. I still did not understand. All I saw was smoke and the headline, "War on America."

After I had exhausted myself and gotten cleaned up, I had to walk through the lobby a second time. More adults now, louder voices, more apparent panic. The televisions, which were usually muted with closed captioning, were now blasting news reports at full volume. A few were frantically making calls on their cell phones, voices tight with anxiety. My mother rushed me through the pockets of space away from the televisions. "Don't worry. This doesn't affect us," she said. It did. The next day at school, as we waited for homeroom to begin, we spoke as children sometimes do—in the echoes of our parents. "We're going to war. We'll kill every one of them, yeah!" High pitched voices of twenty-eight children, mimicking the rhetoric of terrified adults at home and on the television. Most of us probably did not know what a war was, but the effect was poignant. I will never forget that morning. Twenty-eight children, almost unanimously in agreement that it was time for war with the "middle east." The nation's fear had trickled from news rooms and government offices into my fourth-grade class room. As I listened to the other kids proudly cheer for violence, I felt shame for my country. Fear destroyed innocence.

Through the following fifteen years, the utility of fear-mongering evolved. Our leaders, owners of massive corporations, and stock holders of other "industrial" corporations, lambasted media outlets with messages designed specifically to instill fear and segregate our people. The fear now, however, was not meant only to destroy, but also to profit. We watched as our people shipped off overseas. We watched the news reports of drone strikes. We watched heat signatures disappear from grainy black and white screens. Not people, "terrorists." Terrorists with faces we could not see as we dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs across their countries, and ruined what little infrastructure they had achieved through their fabled history of blood and war. We watched as racism and fear found their voices again. We watched as we became the terrorists. Fear to adults is merely business, and business is good.





Essay by Phill
Read 848 times
Written on 2017-01-13 at 20:36

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I read this poem again, and under the different circumstances in which the sensibilities of our citizens are being attacked this time by incarcerating children and immigrants, I feel the same damage being done to our citizens. I feel a cruelty in our country, a hate and racism so similar to the one that took us to an unjust war back then. I feel a physical pain much as I felt when we set out to war with a country that had not attacked us. You are so good at expressing yourself.
Ashe
2018-06-24


Kathy Lockhart
As the mechanics of writing go, this is well done. The emotion, the poetry of the piece, is beautifully expressed. Each of us either as adults, children, parents, and I as a teacher in a classroom of students of children and as a parent, at the time of this horrible event, will carry our lessons and memories with us forever. Politics is a nasty business. It makes enemies and creates lies and incites wars. Young men and women die because of it. Innocent deaths are the result of political games, be they large or small, foreign or domestic.
2017-01-25



Phill, a very well written, moving and thoughtful essay. What our nation is experiencing now will probably turn out to be far worse than the tragedy on 9/11. We could have recovered from that day except for deranged leadership continuing to profit from that crisis. What insanity!
Your essay was very inciteful and thought provoking. Best regards, gsv
2017-01-19


Ivan R
Great write, great thoughts and feelings shared on something as important as what you portray.
2017-01-18


Maija Liepins
I really enjoyed hearing your story of that day. I don't think I've ever heard how the day was experienced by a child - sharing the story in retrospect provokes thoughts about today's children, growing up where the fearmongering newslines that I becane aware of on that day are now every day tone. The use and effect of fear warrants further exploration. I like that you referenced the will to live - that's an important detail - but living in fear usually shuts us down and is as you say destructive. It inhibits life. And I've never considered surviving (having to focus on merely surviving) to be really living.
2017-01-13



I enjoyed reading this very much as you write the perspective as a child and as an adult. Too many adults unfortunately never changed the perspective and are still shouting "war!" This is a very intelligent essay.
Ashe
2017-01-13